As I’ve seen my Should I Work for Free chart get reposted around the internet a bit, there is a topic that is always brought up in comments that I didn’t address on the chart itself: internships. I purposefully avoided talking about them on the chart, just as I avoided diving into great detail about non-profit work—because both are pretty complex matters. When it comes to non-profit work, I know several designers that make their entire living working at or doing freelance for non-profits. On the chart, I wanted to get the point across that most non-profits are legitimate businesses and that while they aren’t declaring profit at the end of the year, they still have expected operating costs and your design work should not necessarily be left out of the mix. I’m already on a tangent though, so let’s get back to the issue at hand.
When I was in college, my university wouldn’t give you academic credit for an unpaid internship. Local design studios knew this, and knew that if they wanted an intern from Tyler School of Art, they would have to fork over some cash (albeit very little cash). It worked out great. Of the three internships I had in college, all were paid. That doesn’t mean I was raking it in, but I was able to change my humble diet of ramen to…pasta.
There is (and has always been) a giant trend to compensate interns in “experience” alone. It’s one thing for a 18-year-old that has never opened Photoshop to walk into a tiny design studio and expect little or no compensation, but the more I talk to young designers struggling to get work, the more I see people in their early and mid-twenties (most with bachelor and graduate degrees) having to settle for unpaid internships in their quest to find a real job. These are people with real skills and they are being taken advantage of. Everyone knows that you won’t get rich from an internship, but companies (even tiny ones) can afford to pay you something for your time, even if what you’re being paid amounts to little more than minimum wage in a city like New York. The big argument you’ll hear against paying interns is that you are learning a lot from the company or designer you’re working for and that their time is so valuable that they are working at a loss to educate you. This is complete bullshit. Well, maybe not complete bullshit but definitely a hearty serving of it.
If you’ve ever had an internship, you know that many of your duties revolve around doing things that other people really don’t want to do—from general office and gopher work like shredding papers, organizing, standing in line at the post office, and getting coffee, to the slightly more design-industry-related stock photo researching. In my opinion, this is the stuff you should definitely be getting paid for. I’m sure someone could argue that you learn something by hovering over a trash can for three hours to the discordant buzz of a shredder, but seriously. Pay that person. Reward them monetarily for being your tedium slave. However you verbally package the skill set they’re building while doing your chores, you are delusional if you think they enjoy it.
Where it gets a bit tricky is when interns are actually doing something of value for a company. Many of you readers will jump in here and say “Well you’re practically an employee! You should be paid as one!” This is true, especially if you are working enough hours that it becomes difficult to have a second pay-the-bills job, but it’s a bit more nuanced than that. You are doing things that are employee-like—converting Quark files to InDesign files, archiving, prepping files for the designer to send to print, maybe even doing some light design work that will most likely never be shown to the client. Should you be compensated for this? Yes, of course. Again, I think interns should be monetarily compensated no matter what. But as you know, money isn’t everything and the most important part of any internship or junior level job should be the experience and knowledge you take away.
I know you all picked up your pitchforks at the
It can be very difficult to have this kind of one-on-one education at a larger company. If you’ve ever interned for a company with more than 50 employees, you know that generally you’re not getting the attention of a supervisor for more than an hour or two every week. That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions to this rule, but (for the most part) a supervisor willing to spend quality facetime with you—time spent actually educating you and critiquing your work—is as mythical a creature as the unicorn. Your job as the office intern is to help out and demand as little time as possible from your employer. The education you’re receiving has more to do with office politics than design. In exchange for this, for being the unseen helper cog in the company machine, you should be paid and paid fairly well.
Employers: before you get in a big huff, I’m not saying you need to pay interns in gold bricks. There is a giant chasm between what interns are usually paid and what qualifies as fair wages in a big city. Have a few less fancy coffees in a week and you can afford to pay an intern ten dollars an hour. Also, we can totally see through the full-time jobs disguised as “internships”. You’re not fooling anyone.
Future Interns: Should you ever take an unpaid internship? I’d advise against it. The reason why there are so many unpaid internships is because so many people are willing to work for free. My university didn’t allow its students to take unpaid internships and by doing so forced local businesses to offer paid internships if they wanted to employ one of its students. Someone has to step in and say “this is the standard and what you are offering is below the standard” before anyone will stop and take notice. Should you take a lower paying internship that offers more hands-on training experience and one-on-one time with a supervisor? In my opinion, yes absolutely. While you should be compensated something for the work you do, your employer’s time is valuable, and if they are taking time to give you a proper education, the lower pay can be well worth it.
I fully agree with you Jessica.
My school was the complete opposite, mandatory UNPAID internship. If they wanted to compensate us, it could not be monetarily, although we could accept transit passes/gas cards/lunches. It was a strain for a lot of us having to work 8+ work days then a part time job on the side.
I’ve been on all sides of this, having worked under a well-paid co-op scheme, an unpaid summer internship, and a day-rate work placement (which what they call it in the UK). For the student or intern, your first concern shouldn’t be money, it should be projects! To clarify, you need to work some place where you can get finished projects into your book and say “I made this” without lying through your teeth. This may mean a smaller, less well-known firm, or an in-house group that is less lusty than you dreamt about. Even a superstar name on your resume won’t give you a leg up when you’re trying to get your first few roles. Frankly, no one cares about resumes anymore, they are very 20th century.
In conclusion, an internship is about building your portfolio, not your resume, and not your wallet.
But I agree with Jess, don’t work for free. It’s the principle of the thing.
I’m vehemently opposed to unpaid internships after taking one a little over a year ago. It was for college credit but, as it was a summer internship, I needed to pay a little over $1K for the credit and additional expenses to take the train downtown every day and buy myself lunch. Who knew working could be so expensive?
Unpaid internships shouldn’t be as common anymore with the Department of Labor’s Fair Labor Standards Act: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm
“There are some circumstances under which individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs may do so without compensation. … This may apply to interns who receive training for their own educational benefit if the training meets certain criteria …
If an employer uses interns as substitutes for regular workers or to augment its existing workforce during specific time periods, these interns should be paid at least the minimum wage and overtime compensation for hours worked over forty in a workweek.”
I think it’s probably pretty rare that a company these days would bring in an intern to shadow an employee in a really educational situation that would make it legit to be unpaid.
I definitely agree with Jessica. I’ve had a paid internship and an unpaid internship. They were both incredible experiences, but the things I value most from them are the connections I made and the confidence I gained by producing projects from start to finish.
It may sound shallow, but in today’s society, money is a marker of value. Organizations that pay for your time are more likely to use it wisely. The paid internship was less gopher-esque, and I was given more design-related tasks. It’s difficult to land a first-time job without taking another internship, but I wouldn’t work for free in the future unless it’s a freelance gig for a good cause.
I completely agree with you. During my four years at design school, I held multiple paid internships where I gained valuable experience and confidence. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I accepted an unpaid internship. I was so desperate to work at a ‘real’ agency, and I thought that it might lead to a full time job. What I learned was if I didn’t value my own time, my ‘employer’ definitely wasn’t going to. I spent a LOT of time watching other people design, and waiting to be given any sort of work.
Thanks for writing this!
Hooray! Hopefully the more people write about this, the more companies will be shamed into taking responsibility for their interns rather than taking the “Well, everybody else does it” stance.
No matter how great the company or the work you do there, the amount you’re being paid is the about the amount anyone is going to value your work.
Anybody else who’s interested in getting hard line about this should check out the new book: “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy.”
Great article! I would like to add that unpaid internships give an unfair advantage to lower-income students and recent graduates. When I was in design school at Syracuse, I experienced the utter defeat of my wealthier classmates taking on fabulous unpaid internships in Manhattan over the summers, while I slogged seafood as a waitress in Maine 70 hours a week to attempt to pay for my rent, food and art supplies in the coming semester. In hindsight, my experience was probably more valuable in a real-world sense, but it’s definitely unfair that these students who already have so much privilege when it comes to education can get an additional leg-up by having real-design-world experience at a fabulous agency while their parents pay their rent and bills. Many of them were hired out of school at these agencies while I struggled to move to San Francisco and enter an urban workforce with nothing better on my resume than waitressing, and only $300 (from graduation gifts) to my name. (But I did it!)
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I was fortunate enough to have gone through two paid internships during my time at college, but there is [or so it seems] few employers willing to pay their interns. My university also required internship credit to graduate, paid or unpaid. We’re still having to pay for those college credits, so why aren’t we being paid for the work and/or ‘experience’ we get out of the internship?
Now that I’ve worked in this industry for just over year, I watched our agency NOT pay our summer interns. Since they didn’t pay our interns, the interns weren’t allowed to work on any billable work. They were given a “made up” project to work on. I don’t see any real experience developing out of that—it was like a glorified school project done in an office setting.
I completely agree with Jessica. I’ve only ever had paid internships, although some were less than others. I’m getting paid this summer, but I’m also having to pay $2,000 in tuition for a class that I don’t attend and is pass/fail. I think the most important issue affecting paid/unpaid internships is university policies towards academic credit. With tuition and textbook prices always increasing, it’s important that universities protect their students and act in their interest.
Love that you put this together. I can think of a handful of people that could/should take something away from your write up. Internships have been getting out of control lately, and I can’t help but be reminded of the heated conversation that recently took place on this DesignLoveFest post about her looking for a (non-paid) intern to come to the table already skilled in Photoshop, etc: http://www.designlovefest.com/2011/08/internship-at-designlovefest/
A great post Jessica, and I love your style of writing. In London it’s common for internships to offer reimbursements in the form of ‘a zones 1-2 travel card only’ – how on earth do they expect people to live? I too wrote about this subject earlier in the year, see: http://www.davidthedesigner.com/davidthedesigner/2011/01/for-free-or-not-for-free.html
Thanks Jessica. Just as our field is being devalued by crowdsourcing, unpaid internships are more often than not the design industry taking advantage of graduates with little experience, which is possibly even worst.
As a designer with six years experience, I’ve found that the best clients are those who respect you and pay you for your work, and the same applies within the design industry itself – the best agencies respect their employees and the time and effort they are putting in, and that includes paying them for it. Money is not what matters but it shows that you respect the time and effort your employee is putting in.
I recently had the good fortune of being chosen for a life changing internship at a medium sized web company – Viget Labs. It was hands down one of the best and most influential experiences I could have hoped for—and it was unpaid.
I think that a lot of folks get the short end of the stick in internships, but I think there needs to be accountability for both the employer AND the intern when it comes to understanding what you’ll be getting yourself into. Ideally, your duties as an intern should come as no surprise when you start, though it seems a lot of times that’s not the case.
At Viget, I wasn’t an “office intern” or “gopher” and at the same time I wasn’t displacing one of their designers doing low level billable work. They painstakingly structure their internships so that there was a mix of shadowing and mentoring, direct instruction in micro-classes and clinics, and personal research and reading. This meant that each week I spent hours working alongside the UX team, visual designers, front end dev’s, and project managers so that I understood “HOW” Viget operated. We had end of week debriefs with the whole visual design team where I got at least an hour of extremely valuable critiques of my work from super-skilled designers.
Above all, they treat everyone wonderfully. I had my own desk with a big flatscreen monitor to use, a key to the office, and everyone’s care and respect.
Knowing their billable rates and how many hours countless people put into my development each week instead of working on client work I know that I came out way ahead compared to if I were plugging away on my own and being paid an hourly wage.
Jessica, I whole-heartedly agree with your article with the caveat that there are internships out there that fall outside of the scope of the problems that you’re speaking to. Future interns, make sure you’re asking questions at your interview too, and ensure that the company values your time and expertise.
Just to play devil’s advocate, I’ll leave you with a thought. At whatever stage you are now, think back to five years ago. If you’re like me, you’re saying “yikes” and remarking on how much you’ve improved. With this new perspective, you have to realise that students aren’t even at the start of their careers — they are at some pre-start point! With very few noted exceptions, students aren’t very good. In fact, they often suck! Which is ok, because they haven’t even graduated to being a Rookie. With art schools putting more and more emphasis on theory, and less on practical “wrist-down” skills, it’s hard to make that case that someone 19 years old with a few weeks of design courses is a viable member of the workforce. It is, after all, a burden on the company, and they are taking on an intern in an effort to fill your educational gaps (of which there are many). So on top of slowing down the agency workflow, and providing no viable skills, you want us to pay you?
I have to imagine that’s the only contradiction perspective. Also, interesting to note, is that The White House takes on unpaid interns every year, meanwhile backing the nationwide effort for interns to be paid. This contradiction is swiftly quelled with the excuse that “we don’t want to spend taxpayer money”, but it’s a fishy scenario for them. I reckon they don’t _need_ the interns, but they just want to keep young people interested in Politics in general. (which is legit, and a whole other blog post)
Last summer I actually took on two interns of my own. Except I didn’t call them interns, I just called them freelancers. I tried my hardest to get them working on client (billable) projects, and asked them point-blank if they’re ok working on internal (non-billable) stuff at a reduced rate. In the case of these two, they were, but if they said no, I wouldn’t have thought less of ‘em. I probably would have just sent them home for lack of stuff to do. Honestly, I think more and more business owners are adopting models like this, especially for degree-holding intern candidates. Treat like adults, but also like the rookies that they are.
In conclusion, some people dicks exploiting free labour. But luckily, they are going steadily extinct.
I agree with your post, completely.
I had the great fortune while attending MICA, to have a paid internship before my senior year. My internship was for a very small studio. This was in olden times (1984), pre-computers, and I spent a lot of time in a darkroom making photostats, INTs, and putting together comps for two designers. I was also given the opportunity to do some light design work. I also learned to dress like a nun, because my boss was a lech. But, I digress. I was fortunate to get this experience, plus get paid. It wasn’t a lot, but enough to pay my bills and save some money.
Now that I’m my own boss, I’ve had the recent opportunity to give a recent design grad some light design work, for pay. It’s been a win-win for both of us.
Prescott, For sure this argument ONLY works for current students, and even still it sounds like you’re talking about a more “career shadowing” internship than one that involves any actual work. If you have an intern come in only to observe and learn a couple days a week, for sure payment isn’t necessary, but if they are doing anything for you (like making post office trips), throw a little cash their way. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but the gesture will be much appreciated. I had an intern this summer that worked out really well—I paid for her housing in NYC if she would come in 2 days a week and do work for me. I left it open if she wanted to come in more than that to come have me teach her stuff or go to socially things OR she could take her extra time to find another job that paid her.
I agree with all the points made. As an employer we want to be sure that any employee regardless of experience is trained for the workings of our office.. as such all employees have up to a three month training period. Depending on experience and evidence of talent/ skills salaries are reduced during this training. We even have a placement questionnaire.. its a do you know it or dont you type of exercise. It has been invaluable at insuring future internal collaborators actually know what the say they do in absence of a body of work. We are hoping that everyone feels like there is a transition from past experience to present usefulness in our office. The interns of which there have been few have all meals, parking and a 100 / week stipend. Granted it is not much but certainly no one should have to run a deficit to gain valuable experience.
I hope you’re reading this, Matteo.
Graphic Design senior here…
Thanks for all of this information!
Creative Review is doing a survey on this very topic. In England internships are referred to as work placements. CR interviews design and ad agencies and publishes the results. Especially interesting is when agencies do not answer questions. They published an issue like this in 2004 and it was great. It’s helpful to expose greed and let the best students at least be aware who is kind and make an informed decision. CR’s current survey, which I’d love to see other publications consider implementing for the benefit of the community:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/august/placement-survey
Thank you for this article and for the very useful information. I was recently offered an internship at a design firm that I though was really cool. I then asked if I would receive any compensation. I was then told that the experience I would receive was pay enough. I had to turn the internship down, and I haven’t regretted it. Doing so helped raise my own sense of self worth and I have since been able to pick up some good freelance work while finishing up school.
And now for a bit of pointless gushing: I love you. So much. Is it sad that this freelance illustrator gets all weepy over a few payment home truths? Probably.
Thank you Jessica this is very generous and helpful.
Just a quick comment from a Photo Editor… Clearly, an intern hopping on istockphoto to find a royalty free hamburger is one thing, but I worked my way up at a magazine from an internship in a photo department to photo department freelancer to a full-time staff position as photo editor, and what we do isn’t just “slightly more design-industry-related.” It’s a full and valid division of the design industry. Every magazine I’ve worked for (and there have been several), Photo editors and graphic designers work together to form an art department, where we use our respective strengths to find the best pictures and use them in the most effective way. I really appreciate and respect your writing, and I know you meant no harm, but Photo Editors are design professionals too.
I absolutely agree with you that this is how things should be. I’m an intern, and for that I would say I’m lucky. Many of my friends don’t even have jobs or internships. What’s more, I’m even getting paid. Money is always a good thing and as they say, it pays the bills. Just.
Once you subtract my rent, utilities and insurance and gas on my car, I earn roughly $2 per day. $2 that goes for frivolous luxuries such as food.
If you’re going to take on an intern, the cost of admission should be the minimum wage. I’d gladly accept slowly moving up from 8 to 8.50 to 9/hour etc over the years than move from unpaid internship to a 12 or 13/hour in one jump. It’s only treating interns like humans.
There is the argument that goes “interns don’t have experience, so they should get experience and not money – why should I pay someone to learn?” If all you’re going to do is take time out of your schedule to teach someone how to do things, it kind of makes sense because your time could be used to do your own work. More likely than not, you’re going to be giving an intern an actual task to do. Someone who’s new at something is going to do a worse job at it regardless of whether you pay them or not. It’s certainly nicer if you do pay them, but it gives the intern a reason to do a good job.
Hi Jessica! Thank you for this post, it is amazingly helpful for us freelance illustrators. I find it very hard, though, to ask for the payment when the job takes ages to get to an end (usually their fault) and I get totally unstable with my finances. How do you do that? Do you ask for part of the payment before / during the process?
This is an issue I feel really strongly about, so I’m glad to have found this post (and surprised I didn’t find it earlier!).
Here’s part of a comment I posted years ago on Speak Up in response to a post about Bruce Mau’s “Institute Without Boundaries” (otherwise known as an internship you pay for, but that’s another thing):
“I also run a design studio (although a much smaller one), and we also try to do a variety of smart, interesting work for a variety of smart, interesting clients as a way to make the world a better place.
We also have people that come in for a limited time to do research and production and design and to just generally learn about what we do and how we do it. At the same time, those people help us by getting the work done.
I like to call these people ‘employees.’ By providing valuable services to the studio, they receive substantial compensation, both financial and educational, as a function of being part of the team.
Some of these ‘employees’ are called ‘interns.’ These ‘interns’ are full- or part-time students in design school. They also receive compensation, although they are paid less and learn more.
There is a long tradition of learning a trade through work: apprenticeships, medical school rotations and so on. But when your learning consists of putting labor into projects from which someone else will profit, that’s not okay.”
And of course, there’s the matter of unpaid internships being illegal (at least what we call internships, that is). If you’re asking someone to do things that you derive value from, you need to pay them. To make it unpaid, you’d pretty much have to conduct classes in your office.
One other thing that I think is important: We only hire students to be interns. More and more these days we get applicants with degrees wanting internships. Why don’t they apply for a job or ask to freelance? Should I hire people as interns that I wouldn’t otherwise?
Anyway, I’m glad this issue is getting more attention. If you agree with Jessica (and me), please go sign the AIGA Philadelphia Paid Internship Pledge at http://aigaphilly.org/jobs/unpaid-internship-policy and spread the word.
Ok, I have a dilemma! I have an opportunity to take an unpaid internship, but this internship is over an hour away and will cost me over $400/month in gas since I have a mid-size suv. My husband is on disability and I don’t have a job. We also have a small child. We are limited on income since the money we get goes straight to bills and food and I really do not want to fork out that much money that we don’t even have. I am a full-time graduate student and need to commit the nights and weekends to study. Should I take the internship regardless of the money situation or should I try to find something that is closer to home? Thanks!!!
This definitely doesn’t sound like an ideal situation and I’d seek out something closer to home. Internships should never cost YOU money.
Thanks for another wonderful article. Where else could anyone get that type of information in such an ideal way of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I’m on the look for such info.